Books like 'Luminous'
Readers who enjoyed Luminous by Greg Egan also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
futuristic sc-fi hard sci-fi cyberpunk politics near-future
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Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 61 ratingsThe fifth novel in Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel!A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed... -
Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsThe sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets...Categorized as:
near-future politics 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens apocalyptic audiobook -
Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsThe propulsive, shockingly plausible sequel to New York Times bestseller Daemon, the "Greatest. Techno-thriller. Period."**William O'Brien, former director of cybersecurity and communications systems policy at the White House2009 saw one of the most inventive techno-thriller debuts in decades as Daniel Suarez introduced his terrifying and tantalizing vision of a new world order... -
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsFor twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years... -
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Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIt begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.It begins with a murder.And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit... -
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsThe fourth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse seriesThe gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world... -
Radiation Hazard by Laurence E. Dahners
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis hard Sci-Fi novel is the third book in the “Stasis Stories,” a series of optimistic tales of technological innovation in the near future. They follow Kaem Seba, a sickly and financially destitute young man with extraordinary math talents. With his friends, he’s developed a device that allows him to stop time within limited volumes of space-time...Categorized as:
near-future action-adventure adult book fiction futuristic hard-sci-fi super-powered -
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsRobert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era, an influence so large that, as Samuel R. Delany notes, "modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean." He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands... -
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsThe Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science fiction coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence... -
We Few by David Weber, John Ringo
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPrince Roger MacClintock was an heir to the galaxy's Throne of Man-and a self-obsessed spoiled young brat . . . until he and the Royal Marines sent to protect him were stranded on Marduk with only their feet to get them half way around the entire planet. So far, they've traversed a continent, crossed a sea full of ship-eating monsters, taken over an enemy spaceport, and hijacked a starship... -
Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMy name is Rex. I am a good dog. Rex is also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy caliber weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instill fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he's part of a Multiform Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, Mexico. A genetically engineered Bioform, he's a deadly weapon in a dirty war... -
Daemon by Daniel Suarez
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsA high-tech thriller for the wireless age that explores the unthinkable consequences of a computer program running without human control—a daemon—designed to dismantle society and bring about a new world orderTechnology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire... -
After Atlas by Emma Newman
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAcclaimed author Emma Newman returns to the captivating universe she created in Planetfall with a stunning science fiction mystery where one man’s murder is much more than it seems... Govcorp detective Carlos Moreno was only a baby when Atlas left Earth to seek truth among the stars. But in that moment, the course of Carlos’s entire life changed... -
Apex by Ramez Naam
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsGlobal unrest spreads as mass protests advance throughout the US and China, Nexus-upgraded riot police battle against upgraded protestors, and a once-dead scientist plans to take over the planet's electronic systems. The world has never experienced turmoil of this type, on this scale.They call them the Apex - humanity's replacement. They're smarter, faster, better. And infinitely more dangerous... -
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The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsThe time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples... -
Citadel by John Ringo
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsOf all the hosts of Eurotas the Troias were the most fell. For they were born of Winter.Between the Solar Array Pumped Laser and Troy, the two trillion ton nickel-iron battlestation created by eccentric billionaire Tyler Vernon, Earth has managed to recapture the Sol system from their Horvath conquerors and begin entering the galactic millieu... -
Building Victoria by M.D. Cooper
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Intrepid is drifting slowly between the stars. After near calamity at LHS 1565, the ship is headed for Kapteyn's Star to make repairs. There, the crew will need to spend decades building a temporary industrial base. Across the void, the Noctus prepare to leave Sirius for the same destination. Their plan is to colonize the system and forge a new lives for themselves .. -
The Titan Probe: Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Q. Morris
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn 2005, the robotic probe “Huygens” lands on Saturn’s moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander. At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth... -
Understand by Ted Chiang
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLeon is a former coma victim, who has gone experimental medical treatment to repair the massive trauma his brain received after he was trapped under ice for more than an hour. He’s regained consciousness, found he has all of his faculties back and a whole lot more. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1991.Approx... -
The Shadow of Saganami by David Weber
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Star Kingdom has a new generation of officers! And this elite group hand-picked and trained by Honor Harrington herself is going to be needed immediately, as their first assignment turns out to be more dangerous than anyone expected... -
The Churn by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author James S.A. Corey...Before his trip to the stars, before the Rocinante, Amos Burton's was confined to a Baltimore where crime paid you or killed you. Unless the authorities got to you first.Set in the hard-scrabble solar system of Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate and the upcoming Cibola Burn, Beloved of Broken Things deepens James S. A... -
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTen tales, from the computer-enhanced hustlers of Johnny Mnemonic to the technofetishist blues of Burning Chrome... -
The Skinner by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsNeal Asher, whom Tor introduced to the American audience with Gridlinked, takes us deeper into his unique universe with an even more remarkable second novel, The Skinner... -
Sycamore 2 by Craig A. Falconer
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter discovering the truth behind Sycamore, tech pioneer Kurt Jacobs rejects the corporation’s offer of a new identity and chooses to fight to expose the truth. But with an overt threat against his family hanging over him, Kurt must act without being seen... -
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The Jupiter Catastrophe: Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Q. Morris
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter a long journey to Saturn’s moon Enceladus, spaceship ILSE is on its way back to Earth, carrying crucial cargo. The crew is exhausted and wants nothing more than a quick return home. Suddenly, a chain of malfunctions puts the expedition in peril. The difficulties appear to be related to planet Jupiter, whose orbit they are crossing... -
Red Horizon: The Truth of Discovery by Salvador Mercer
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe truth of discovery is on mankind’s horizon, a Red Horizon. For nearly four long years, the world’s superpowers have mobilized their people and resources in preparation for the next discovery, Mars. The race against one another pales in comparison to the inherent dangers of travelling through the vastness of the cosmos, going where mankind has never gone before...Categorized as:
near-future adult book exploration fiction first-contact futuristic genetic-engineering -
Snow in the Desert by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the parched, arid wastes of this far-flung Polity world, Snow is being hunted. With a prize on his head and his life in danger, trust is a luxury he can't afford. Hirald, pale and deadly in the blistering heat, is an ambiguous presence. But who is she? What does she want from him? Mankind has sought Snow's secret for thousands of years, and blood will flow in the desert before it's revealed...Categorized as:
cyberpunk action-adventure adult anthologies fiction futuristic hard-sci-fi military -
Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAlice works at the Scottish Embassy in Tallinn in Estonia as a member of the Cultural Section. When two men bring her the jewelled skull of a Scottish saint her world gets turned on its head, and she becomes the latest recruit to Les Coureurs des Bois.On a Greek island Benno is just one of hundreds of refuges dreaming of a new life in Continental Europe...Categorized as:
near-future action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book dystopia espionage -
The Triton Disaster by Brandon Q. Morris
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNick Abrahams still holds the official world record for the number of space launches, but he’s bored stiff with his job hosting space tours. Only when his wife leaves him, however, does he try to change his life.He accepts a tempting offer from a Russian billionaire... -
Degrees of Freedom by Simon Morden
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWinner of the 2012 Philip K. Dick Award The Six Degrees of PetrovitchMichael is an AI of incalculable complexity trapped under the remains of Oshicora tower. Petrovitch will free him one day, he just has to trust Michael will still be sane by the time he does.Maddy and Petrovitch have trust issues. She's left him, but Petrovitch is pretty sure she still loves him... -
The Turing Exception by William Hertling
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn the year 2043, humans and AI coexist in a precarious balance of power enforced by a rigid caste reputation system designed to ensure that only those AI who are trustworthy and contribute to human society increase in power. Everything changes when a runaway nanotech event destroys Miami... -
Kill Process by William Hertling
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBy day, Angie, a twenty-year veteran of the tech industry, is a data analyst at Tomo, the world's largest social networking company; by night, she exploits her database access to profile domestic abusers and kill the worst of them. She can't change her own traumatic past, but she can save other women... -
Zero Point by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEarth's Zero Asset citizens no longer face extermination from orbit. Thanks to Alan Saul, the Committee's network of control is a smoking ruin and its robotic enforcers lie dormant. But power abhors a vacuum and, scrambling from the wreckage, comes the ruthless Serene Galahad... -
Perilous Shield by Jack Campbell
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell returns with the next chapter in the overthrow of the Syndicate Worlds’ oppression… Following a successful coup, the leaders of the rebel Midway Star System struggle to forge a government free enough to please its citizens yet strong enough to secure power... -
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Biochips by William Gibson
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsTurner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected... -
The Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsAfter long years of war, the United States has sued for peace, yielding to a brutal coalition of nations ruled by fascist machines. One quarter of the country is under foreign occupation. Manhattan has been annexed by a weird robot monarchy, and in Tennessee, a permanent peace is being delicately negotiated between the battered remnants of the U.S. government and an envoy of implacable machines... -
Nexus by Ramez Naam
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMankind gets an upgradeIn the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it... -
A.I. Apocalypse by William Hertling
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsLeon Tsarev is a high school student set on getting into a great college program, until his uncle, a member of the Russian mob, coerces him into developing a new computer virus for the mob’s botnet - the slave army of computers they used to commit digital crimes.The evolutionary virus Leon creates, based on biological principles, is successful -- too successful... -
Vurt by Jeff Noon
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsVurt is a feather--a drug, a dimension, a dream state, a virtual reality. It comes in many colors: legal Blues for lullaby dreams. Blacks, filled with tenderness and pain, just beyond the law. Pink Pornovurts, doorways to bliss. Silver feathers for techies who know how to remix colors and open new dimensions. And Yellows--the feathers from which there is no escape... -
Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCory Doctorow's Attack Surface is a standalone novel set in the world of New York Times bestsellers Little Brother and Homeland.Most days, Masha Maximow was sure she'd chosen the winning side.In her day job as a counterterrorism wizard for an transnational cybersecurity firm, she made the hacks that allowed repressive regimes to spy on dissidents, and manipulate their every move... -
The Last Good Man by Linda Nagata
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsScarred by war. In pursuit of truth.Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies... -
Theories of Flight by Simon Morden
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWinner of the 2012 Philip K. Dick AwardTheorem: Petrovitch has a lot of secrets.Proof: Secrets like how to make anti-gravity for one. For another, he's keeping a sentient computer program on a secret server farm - the same program that nearly destroyed the Metrozone a few months back.Theorem: The city is broken.Proof: The people of the OutZone want what citizens of the Metrozone have... -
The Terminal State by Jeff Somers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAvery Cates is an army man. Between the army's new dental plan and a set of first class augments, he's been given a second chance - albeit a quick one.When a corrupt officer decides to make some money on the side by selling new recruits, Cates finds himself in uncharted territory... -
The Final Evolution by Jeff Somers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe world is dying. With avatars replacing humans and the birth rate non-existent, the human race is almost extinct. In the end, it comes down to Canny Orel; Avery's long sought after nemesis -- transformed now into something other than human.Orel might hold the secret to humanity's salvation, if he can be convinced -- or forced -- to relinquish it... -
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Silent Sun by Brandon Q. Morris
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIs our sun behaving differently from other stars? When an amateur astronomer discovers something strange on telescopic solar pictures, an explanation must be found. Is it merely artefact? Or has he found something totally unexpected? An expert international crew is hastily assembled, a spaceship is speedily repurposed, and the foursome is sent on the ride of their lives... -
Paintwork by Tim Maughan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAugmented reality street artist 3Cube wants to break into the mainstream, and as one of the best in the graffiti mecca of Bristol he stands a real chance. Except that someone, some unseen rival, seems set on using even the most old-fashioned of methods to stop him from succeeding.John Smith was successful once, if only for a fleeting moment... -
All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsAlthough Colin Laney (from Gibson's earlier novel Idoru) lives in a cardboard box, he has the power to change the world. Thanks to an experimental drug that he received during his youth, Colin can see "nodal points" in the vast streams of data that make up the worldwide computer network... -
Zero History by William Gibson
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHollis Henry never intended to work for global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend again. But now she’s broke, and Bigend has just the thing to get her back in the game... Milgrim can disappear in almost any setting, and his Russian is perfectly idiomatic—so much so that he spoke it with his therapist in the secret Swiss clinic where Bigend paid for him to be cured of his addiction.. -
The Beam: The Complete First Season Collection by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsThis collection contains the complete first season of the epic sci-fi saga, The Beam -- all SIX debut-season episodes. Save 45% versus buying the individual episodes! In a grim future, choice is all you have In 2097, the world is as perfect as you want it to be.Choose Enterprise and the government stays out of your way, leaving you free to sink or swim — no help for the drowning... -
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsFour decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune...Categorized as:
cyberpunk near-future 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary
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